(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to automated work processes and, more particularly, to a automated searching of databases for content, including but not limited to technology, inventions, patents, and patent-related information and/or documents.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Database searching can be divided into two major types of searching—non-patent legal database searching and patent legal database searching.
Non-patent legal database searching, for whom the computerized search engines where first designed, is directed toward the task of extracting few, precise records. These queries and searches engines are designed to bring out the fewest documents possible to fulfill the needs of the searcher. This type of prior art searching requires that the user submit keywords to a search engine to get a single set of results. The user can use Boolean operators, such as AND, OR, ANDNOT (also NOT), etc. to more precisely define the search. The user can also weight keywords such that the results are ranked. However, neither increasing the precision of the search nor ranking the results ensures the thoroughness of the search and, in fact, both methods are designed to reduce the number of returned records.
In contrast, prior art searching for patent legal needs is designed to be thorough to ensure that the invention is novel and non-obvious. The traditional method is to search through all the records in the classes to which an invention may belong. This method is thorough, but is laborious and time-consuming. Additionally, other sources of prior art exist that are not classified and patent databases per se are becoming to large to be searched by this method. Persons wishing to search these databases in a timely manner frequently construct one or more queries to thoroughly cover the invention field. However, these search methods are idiosyncratic and not generally executed according to a predetermined method. The thoroughness of the search must therefore be closely evaluated each time.
Thus, a need exists for database content searching, particular for technology, patent, and/or prior art searching methods and systems that are precise and thorough, easily evaluated and supervised, and which minimizes the number of records that an examiner must review to perform a precise and thorough examination. In addition, a need exists for a method of displaying the large amounts of data in a single view while allowing examination of individual records, such that the user or viewer can assess the technology field density and inspect individual records from the same view.